Here’s a treat from when I was very young.
This is Ginger’s Adventures, written and illustrated by A. J. MacGregor (with revised verses by W. Perring, apparently). As you’ll be able to see by clicking on the small images below, it’s all rather lovely. It’s also a family heirloom. Here is the cover:
This is Ginger’s Adventures, written and illustrated by A. J. MacGregor (with revised verses by W. Perring, apparently). As you’ll be able to see by clicking on the small images below, it’s all rather lovely. It’s also a family heirloom. Here is the cover:
I think this used to belong to Dad – I’ve ‘borrowed’ it and put it on the bookshelf in my room. What else was I supposed to do? It had been sitting on a bookshelf on the landing for ever – it’s far better on the small bookshelf in my room. At least it will get read from time to time and Dad won’t notice that it’s not where it has always been.
I don’t need to tell you what the story is about because you can read it for yourself below (the book is now out of print). I know the whole thing off by heart and somehow I think that I always have. And that is how I knew, years ago, in the days when I had bedtime stories read to me, that one of the kindly family members who read to me always missed two pages out. Mum and Dad, of course, were the two people who most often read to me. Occasionally, if Mum and Dad were out and Finn and I were being babysat, Nana or Grandpa Grundy would read to me. When it fell to Nana and Grandpa, they’d always asked what I’d like to hear and I’d often ask for my absolute favourite - Ginger’s Adventures.
So a number of different people read Ginger’s Adventures to me but only one of them used to skip a couple of pages. And that person was… Nana Grundy! To begin with, I suppose my young mind must have thought that she had better things to do than read me a bedtime story and so she’d missed bits out to get to the end more quickly. But it wasn’t that. Once, after this had happened a couple of times before, I must have given Nana a puzzled look when she’d skipped ahead. Perhaps I also groaned a little, too. To be honest, I can’t remember exactly. But I do recall the reason she gave for skipping ahead: “They are ducks, Emmabella, not ‘Quackies’!”
Anyway, it turned out that Nana Grundy really likes Ginger’s Adventures and had remembered it from her childhood. She just doesn’t like the use of the word ‘quackies’ instead of ‘ducks’. I have no opinion on this either way but, like Nana, I really love the book.
Our copy (my copy now) was published in 1949 and it is the eighth edition. I searched the author’s name on the internet; she is Angusine Jeanne MacGregor who was born in 1879 and died in 1961. Apparently, she illustrated a lot of early Ladybird books of which this is one. I shall keep my eyes open when I’m in the charity shops in the hope of finding some of the others.
Clicking on any of the images below will take you to a larger picture of the page. From there, you’ll be able to read all of this wonderful and wonderfully illustrated book.
At the bottom of the page you’ll find a short animation I made inspired by A J MacGregor’s story.
I don’t need to tell you what the story is about because you can read it for yourself below (the book is now out of print). I know the whole thing off by heart and somehow I think that I always have. And that is how I knew, years ago, in the days when I had bedtime stories read to me, that one of the kindly family members who read to me always missed two pages out. Mum and Dad, of course, were the two people who most often read to me. Occasionally, if Mum and Dad were out and Finn and I were being babysat, Nana or Grandpa Grundy would read to me. When it fell to Nana and Grandpa, they’d always asked what I’d like to hear and I’d often ask for my absolute favourite - Ginger’s Adventures.
So a number of different people read Ginger’s Adventures to me but only one of them used to skip a couple of pages. And that person was… Nana Grundy! To begin with, I suppose my young mind must have thought that she had better things to do than read me a bedtime story and so she’d missed bits out to get to the end more quickly. But it wasn’t that. Once, after this had happened a couple of times before, I must have given Nana a puzzled look when she’d skipped ahead. Perhaps I also groaned a little, too. To be honest, I can’t remember exactly. But I do recall the reason she gave for skipping ahead: “They are ducks, Emmabella, not ‘Quackies’!”
Anyway, it turned out that Nana Grundy really likes Ginger’s Adventures and had remembered it from her childhood. She just doesn’t like the use of the word ‘quackies’ instead of ‘ducks’. I have no opinion on this either way but, like Nana, I really love the book.
Our copy (my copy now) was published in 1949 and it is the eighth edition. I searched the author’s name on the internet; she is Angusine Jeanne MacGregor who was born in 1879 and died in 1961. Apparently, she illustrated a lot of early Ladybird books of which this is one. I shall keep my eyes open when I’m in the charity shops in the hope of finding some of the others.
Clicking on any of the images below will take you to a larger picture of the page. From there, you’ll be able to read all of this wonderful and wonderfully illustrated book.
At the bottom of the page you’ll find a short animation I made inspired by A J MacGregor’s story.
